(The Associated Press circulated the following article by Leslie Miller on November 30.)
WASHINGTON — Trains carrying poisonous gases should be required to go slowly through populated areas, say safety officials who investigated a crash that killed nine people when it released chlorine gas on Graniteville, S.C.
Early on the morning of Jan. 6, a Norfolk Southern train veered off the main track onto a spur, rear-ending a parked train whose crew hadn’t returned the hand-operated switch to its original position, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded. The switch would have kept the moving train on the main rail. “It was unfortunate, careless behavior that left that switch misaligned,” NTSB Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker said.
The derailment punctured a tank car carrying 90 tons of chlorine, and the toxic cloud that escaped killed the train engineer and eight others.
Another 250 people were injured, and 5,400 were evacuated.
It was the worst train wreck involving hazardous materials in 30 years, but not the only fatal one.
The tank car that ruptured in the South Carolina accident was one of the strongest currently in use, and the train was moving at only 42 mph when it crashed.
New standards for sturdier tank cars are in the works but won’t be implemented soon. Congress in July ordered the Federal Railroad Administration to study the vulnerability of railroad tank cars and to set new toughness standards for them. Those standards are required to take effect in 2008, and new tank cars won’t go into service for years.
The NTSB recommended that railroads in the meantime should run trains in ways less likely to result in crashes. One of those ways is to slow down in populated areas. Just how slow is up to railroad regulators, said Mr.
Rosenker.
“There is not one answer that says everyone drops down to 26 mph,” the safety board’s acting chairman said, adding that the track, the train and the number of people nearby need to be taken into consideration.
The board said another way to reduce the chances of rupture or derailment of a tank car carrying poisonous gases is to position it toward the rear of the train. The tank car that was punctured and torn in the South Carolina crash was the ninth car of 42 on the train.
Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Steve Kulm said the agency will respond to the NTSB about its recommendations, which it takes seriously. Since the Graniteville crash, the FRA started work on a regulation governing misaligned switches, Mr. Kulm said. The agency also issued an emergency order in October to improve manual switching procedures.
John Murphy, director of the Teamsters Rail Conference, said railroads shouldn’t wait for the Federal Railroad Administration to act. “Rail companies must act now to implement changes recommended by the NTSB,”
Mr. Murphy said.
The NTSB made clear that it views the railroad industry as safe. “What we have is a relatively safe industry that we are trying to make safer,”
Mr. Rosenker said.
Among the board’s other recommendations to the Federal Railroad Administration were:
To require that automatic devices, such as flashing lights, be installed at switches along main railroad tracks that don’t have signals.
To determine the best way to provide emergency breathing apparatus for crews on trains carrying chemicals that are poisonous if inhaled, and then require railroads to provide those for crews.